4.20.2011

** I actually wrote this on the 16th, which was...I dunno, awhile ago? Just in case you care **

Since moving to this wonderful state of Misery, we seem to have suffered through more plagues than at any other time in my life.

First came the lice.

Oh sweet Jesus, the lice.

I've never dealt with lice before. Managed to live my whole entire existence on this planet without being attacked by tiny little head bugs. But we moved here, and BAM! The Monkey gets lice. And of course, since she had lice, *I* got lice. And then my niece. And my sister.

In case you're unaware, the Monkey has looong hair, down to her cute little butt. And it's the most beautiful color and texture. Which most of the time? Is awesome. When you add lice to the mix, you pretty much want to die. Not her so much. ME. First doing the trial and error of what crap actually works, each trial taking any where from 4 hours to 2 days. Then once you find something that works, you spend the next two weeks combing out hair with tiny little combs that serve two purposes. One: to comb all the nits and nastiness out. Two: to completely break every strand of hair on your head. So it's awesome in all kinds of ways.

Here's something you should know about me. I require vision assistance. Glasses. Contacts. Whatever. Most recently? Been rocking the glasses. My contacts were bothering me so...you know what? Not important. What is important is that I've been wearing my glasses of late.

Which brings us to today. When I shower, obviously the glasses come off. I don't know why, but generally I take my glasses off before I get undressed to get into the shower. So when I took off my pants this evening, I saw a dark little thing on my leg, and ASSUMED it was lint from my jeans.

You know what happens when you assume, right? Gah.

I get into the shower, start the ritual, and get to the part where I shave my legs. Generally this is not something I do on a regular basis. Mostly out of laziness. Why do I need to shave when 1) it's four freakin' degrees outside and I need all the help I can get keeping warm, and 2) who exactly is it that I am shaving for? The four year old? Doubtful. Plus I have the added benefit of leg hair that grows in a new direction every two square inches, so shaving is a little bit like navigating Pacman through a game of...well...Pacman.

Anyway, leg shaving. The little dark thing is still there. Except now that I am bent over to shave, so I am closer to the dark thing. And it doesn't look fuzzy like lint would. It's more.. a ball. For a brief moment, I think maybe I had scratched my leg and that was blood that had hardened into some sort of weird statue. It happens. Except this was kind of large. Also? When I ran my hand across it, IT DIDN'T FEEL LIKE A CLUMP OF BLOOD. It was kind of...smooth...and...rubbery? I dunno, just didn't feel right.

So I flicked it.

Anyone experienced in tick-ology knows that those suckers bury themselves in deep. And flicking wouldn't generally have worked. And if it did work, only the body would come out, but the head would still be stuck in there. Of all the stories I've heard about ticks and not dying and you can squish the body but the head will grow it back and you can't kill the head because it's made to be flat and slice-y so it can get into you in the first place, I have no idea which ones are true. Before, it never mattered. BECAUSE I NEVER HAD A TICK BEFORE. And I'm sorry, I'm not going to go on an internet tick crusade to hear the horror stories to figure out which ones are true.

But the tick that I flicked came out. (I'm sorry, am I channeling Dr. Seuss?) And landed on the bathroom wall. Only I still didn't realize it was a tick at this point. So I get down on my butt ass naked hands and knees in the shower to gander at that thing I just popped off my leg.

And yeah. It's a tick. *shivers

I don't know if it was coming up for air (do they even do that?) at the exact moment I was flicking or what, but all of it popped out. Thankfully. So I scooped it into one of the Monkey's cups she keeps in the shower (sorry, kiddo!), and flushed that bad boy down the toilet. Twice.

Then I went into a full on TSA search of the rest of my body to make sure it didn't bring any of his buddies along for the free meal. And prayed like crazy that I wouldn't find one because how on earth was I going to get it out of my hair or other body parts I couldn't access as easily and OH MY GOD they record 911 calls and this one would make the news.

I didn't find any more, by the way.

Between the lice, the tick, and the snowpacolypse, I'm reading you loud and clear, Misery. And believe me, I don't want to be here any more than you want me. Also? I super appreciate giving me one day of 80 degree weather before shoving low 30's down my throat. That's the best. Thanks for that.

But maybe we can call a truce and you can call off your passive aggressive attempts to kill me and I'll stop bashing you on a daily basis. Like probably cut it back to once a week or so.